


faith, unshaken

by galacticdrift (Ancalime)



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Lyrium Addiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3139361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ancalime/pseuds/galacticdrift
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can take the boy out of the Chantry, but you can't take the Chant out of the boy. Five (plus one) times the Chant of Light has continued to be a part of Cullen's life after Templarhood, featuring guest appearances by Varric, Mother Giselle, and Cassandra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	faith, unshaken

**Author's Note:**

> Written with my mage Trevelyan in mind, but not specified in any way. This is strictly Cullen-centric, feel free to sub in whatever f!Inquisitor you see fit.

==========  
THRENODIES 12  
==========

"There's a survivor!" The call came from further in, beyond where Cullen had stopped to direct soldiers collecting the wounded. Beyond him there were no more wounded -- only blood-chilling remnants of shattered rubble and withered corpses, both twisted into grotesque shapes by forces beyond any he'd seen in his life. And they'd found a _survivor_?

"Maker's breath," he said in unconscious reflex. "Who is it? Get them out of here with the wounded, this area isn't safe."

"Ser, yes ser. It's a woman, ser. They're saying she came out of the Fade-- that there was another woman behind her, helping her, glowing and holy. Like Andraste herself, I heard them saying."

"Very well, soldier. Send her off with the wounded." His face was as neutral as he could keep it, knowing the desperate need for reliable leadership in this moment. If there was one good thing Kirkwall had taught him, it was keeping up the face of authority when devastation struck.

"Commander." Another soldier called him, and he turned just in time to see a bloody, charred figure slip to the ground from the woman's arms. "We lost another one."

"Leave the body and look for more wounded. We'll return for the dead as soon as we can, but the living _must_  take priority." He knelt and laid out the body, arms folded across the body. From the build, he could tell it was a human or an elf, but so extensive was the damage from the explosion that he couldn't tell if it had been a man or a woman.

"All that the Maker has wrought is in His hand, beloved and precious to Him," Cullen said, folding the arms over the body and resting a hand on the poor soul's forehead for a moment. There wasn't time for more. Flakes of ash drifted from his glove when he straightened.

"Commander! More demons!"

 

==========  
BENEDICTIONS 4  
==========

Behind them, the mountain fell. Cullen heard the dull rumble of the avalanche begin, felt it coming up through the soles of his boots, and wheeled around to bellow.

"Everyone stay close! Hold on to each other! Keep the animals under control!" Cassandra took up the call as well, then his remaining soldiers, herding the ragged survivors into clumps. Maker only knew if the Herald's stunt would bring the mountain down on their heads as well -- they'd likely not even see it coming, given the whirling snowstorm. He only hoped reaching the treeline had given them sufficient distance to escape being buried.

Far off, above the growl and rumble of the mountain, Cullen thought he heard the angry scream of a dragon. But after the mountain quieted, there was nothing but the shriek of the wind, the crunch of snow, the slow movement and murmurs of Haven's survivors digging out of the drifts of snow that piled up around them.

"She did it." Cassandra drew up alongside him, bundled up in what looked -- and smelled -- like an old horse blanket over her armor. They stood together in silence for a long moment. "Andraste is still watching over us."

"Is that all Andraste sent a Herald for, then? To let the Divine die, to bring down the mountain on Haven to cover our escape, only for this monster, this 'Elder One' to regroup and slaughter us at a later date while we fight endlessly against demons spawned from rifts we can no longer hope to close?" A spark of fury warmed Cullen. To have one survivor of the attack that wiped out Divine Justinia's conclave, to give only her the ability to close rifts, just for her to sacrifice herself and be left behind, entombed in an unmarked grave of ice and stone -- it wasn't fair. It wasn't _right_. "No one could have survived that. She'll have died with the bulk of the red templar forces."

"I am not so sure. I believe-- I _hope_  she will be delivered to us again."

"I wish my own certainty agreed with yours." Cullen turned his head, unable to look Cassandra in the eye. "I knew when we left the Chantry. Maker, I said it to her face -- there was no way for that to be survivable."

"And yet, here _we_  are."

"We are here because she paid the price." Cullen bit off each word. "It should have been me."

"No. You are too necessary as the leader of our forces. If it must have fallen to anyone--" Cassandra paused. "I am the more disposable."

"I disagree, Seeker. But we could stand here in the snow and argue about it all night without accomplishing a thing. We'd best get the survivors moving again." To where, Cullen had no idea. Even with the forces assaulting Haven buried under a mountain, they'd lost the only known way to close the rifts all over Thedas -- but if they lingered too long in these mountains, exposure would render the Herald's sacrifice in vain long before the Elder One ever had a chance to threaten them again.

"I want to make sure we're not losing anyone. Will you join the scouts at the vanguard and lead them onward?" Cullen turned back toward the crowd; behind him, Cassandra drew a deep breath.

"No. Leliana and Josephine have it under control. I will stay with you, and wait for the Herald."

He didn't bother denying it, despite his conviction that they would wait in vain.

Alone and in groups, the survivors of Haven stumbled past them; here and there he or Cassandra or both of them would wade through the snow to help someone up and get them moving again, or guide a stray pack animal back to the path broken by those gone ahead.

Around them the blizzard raged, making it far too easy to lose sight of stragglers. As the night wore on the number of people passing by dropped to a trickle, until finally a group of soldiers reached them. When the soldiers announced themselves as the rear guard, faces pale with horror, Cullen shared a glance with Cassandra, whose ramrod-straight spine had never seemed quite so much an intentional affectation.

"Go on ahead." There was no questioning her tone, but the soldiers glanced to Cullen for confirmation and he waved them on. "We will follow behind you, once we are certain there are no more to come."

Unmoving, like she'd been carved from the mountain in the spot where she stood, Cassandra looked back down at the valley where Haven had been. When she opened her mouth to speak, Cullen grew still at her side.

"Blessed are they who stand before the corrupt and the wicked and do not falter." Her soft voice rang clear as steel in the darkness and the snow, and Cullen felt a tremor that had nothing to do with the cold pass through him. "Blessed are the peacekeepers, the champions of the just."

The taste of Kirkwall burning clogged his throat, the ash and dust and desperation that he'd grown so used to at one point he'd forgotten there'd ever been anything else. He swallowed and felt something shift and settle inside him, fracturing in the bitter cold as he took up the next verse. "Blessed are the righteous, the lights in the shadow. In their blood the Maker's will is written."

 

==============  
TRANSFIGURATIONS 10  
==============

Cullen caught sight of one of his soldiers staring at the rift in the middle of the courtyard, murmuring under his breath. _As the moth sees light_ , he heard as he walked by, and a chill went through him. Used as it traditionally was for funerals, that particular part of Transfigurations wasn't the most comforting of verses for someone who had, to his overwhelming surprise and giddy relief, escaped death yet again.

"Well," Varric's voice was droll as he appeared at Cullen's side. "Hard to think of a more literal interpretation of 'the Veil holds no uncertainty for her.'"

Cullen looked down at him, helpless to stop his mouth from crooking upward.

"Maker, those eyes," Varric said, rolling his. "She should've adopted a mabari puppy. There are plenty of worse verses in the Chant, you know."

"'She will know no fear of death...'" Cullen began, then sighed. "I suppose you do have a point there."

"Her sword and shield and beacon and foundation and all that's a little more reliable and close at hand than the Maker, thankfully." Varric slapped him on the back, leather glove making a dull thud against his plate armor.

"You mean Blackwall, The Iron Bull, and Lady Cassandra?" Cullen knew exactly what Varric meant, but couldn't resist the sour retort. At least when she brought Cassandra with her he knew she was in good hands; he was never quite as sure about Iron Bull, and given the events they'd just been through even Blackwall now seemed like a risk in a way he never had before.

Cullen knew there was no better military leader than himself to command the Inquisition's armies, but that didn't save him from the worm of jealousy and concern that writhed under his breastbone every time she rode out. At least he was honest enough with himself by now to have given up on the fiction that his concern about her was purely about her unique ability to seal the rifts.

She spent so much time away from Skyhold that after that awkward, fumbling (yet somehow _perfect_ ) first kiss they'd had little opportunity for anything more. A working meal shared here or there, or a few minutes of fresh air and breathless closeness when she could spare time to pull him away from his duties and then send him back to them feeling like a teenager again in all the best and worst ways.

"I _mean_ the man who secured Adamant while we were off gallivanting in the Fade so she had someplace safe to return to."

"Varric, you were nearly flattened by a Rage demon the moment you came out of that rift."

"And then I shot it in the face and it died!" Varric turned to face him. "Curly, you've gotta take what victories you can."

"Though we've denied Corypheus the Wardens as a fighting force under his command, it's hard to see this as a true victory."

"Maybe you weren't paying attention just now -- I'm not sure even _I_  could come up with something more dramatic than the Inquisitor escaping certain death this many times in _one day._  On top of all the _other_ shit she's already made it through." Varric ticked off items on his fingers. "Certain death at the claws of Corypheus' pet Archdemon. Certain death by plummeting hundreds of feet off a collapsing battlement. And, oh yeah, even more certain death in the Fade at the hands-- tentacles-- pointy leg spikes of a demon that looked like it could eat Corypheus' pet Archdemon for _lunch_."

Cullen stared at Varric, feeling the blood drain from his face.

"All right, maybe we don't tell the troops about that last part." His laugh was a little shaky, and Cullen could see that under his bluster, the encounter had rattled him. "But miracle of miracles,  there's your Inquisitor, stomping around healthy as a druffalo."

"Not a very gracious comparison." Cullen managed a small smile. In fact, he could see tightness in her expression and the way she carried herself that spoke of concealed pain and fatigue, and he wished he could simply sweep her up in his arms and carry her back to Skyhold to rest. "Not 'my' Inquisitor, either."

Varric's disbelieving snort drew looks from several soldiers around them. "Sure, Curly."

 

=====  
TRIALS 1  
=====

Cassandra found him, in the small hours of the morning. Between repetitions he spotted her out of the corner of his eye, but neither of them said anything as he reset his stance and began again. Bits of straw dropped off the practice dummy as his cuts landed in a dissonant, dissatisfying rhythm.

With lyrium hunger biting under his skin, knotted up in his muscles and at the back of his neck, chasing away any chance of rest he'd had -- even rest that came with the guarantee of nightmares -- Cullen had hauled himself out of his tower and down to the practice yard.

If nothing else, he'd thought, he could work himself into exhaustion, but his body betrayed him even here, unable to execute the precise movements drilled into him over years during his training. He missed swings, his steps landing off-balance, the long tip of the Inquisition shield tearing divots out of the grass. Again and again he reset his stance and repeated what should have been a sequence of motions as natural to him as breathing, and just as his breath caught and hitched in his chest, so did his motions stutter and go astray.

"Your attack in eight is weak. Are you still having trouble with your arm after Adamant?"

In a textbook illustration of how foolhardy it was for a commander to rush into the thickest part of a battle with his front-line soldiers, Cullen had wrenched his shoulder and elbow in the fighting when his sword arm was caught and twisted by the pointed wing of a Warden's shield. It was mostly healed by now, and his lips thinned.

"My attack in eight is the very least of my worries."

"That is true. You are overworked and in desperate need of rest, Commander."

"If I could sleep, do you think I would be here at this hour? Even the rawest of templar recruits don't rise so early."

"Does the Order still make new recruits recite the Canticle of Trials to learn the timing of their forms?"

Cullen managed a single harsh bark of laughter. Something in him struggled, bristling at the way Cassandra was, in her way, trying to help him as best she could see how, when all he wanted was to lay down his sword, lay down his head, lay down every burden that weighed on him and just sink into the soft earth of Honnleath in summertime.

Or, failing that, return to his desk and take up his lyrium philter -- against every ounce of his better judgement and despite the sweet and steadfast encouragement of the Inquisitor just days ago.

"Subterfuge is not your strong suit, Seeker."

"I don't know what you are talking about, Commander." Cassandra's formidable neutral expression only worked on those who hadn't known her for long; Cullen could read the contrition and sympathetic frustration underneath and it shamed him.

"Maker, my enemies are abundant, many are those who rise up against me." His arm shook, but his sword and shield knocked against the practice dummy on their appointed beats. A spike of satisfaction like a sudden sunbeam shot through him.

"Again." Cassandra's voice lashed out and returned from the stone beyond them.

He moved with more surety the second time through, and the third. When he reached the tenth repetition Cassandra stopped him. "Enough. Next form. Begin."

"But my faith sustains me," Something eased in his chest, beneath his rattling breath and trembling arms, as every strike landed in its time. "I shall not fear the legion, should they set themselves against me."

"Again." It should gall him to be treated this way, to have his nose rubbed in the life he was trying to leave behind, to be plunged twenty years into the past to his earliest days of templar training. It should -- but instead the words buoyed him up, and he remembered the days after his vigil, when every word of the Chant, every clash of swords and shields in the practice yard, felt like the warm gaze of Andraste herself rested upon him in support.

Ten times she took him through the second form before moving on to the next. He was shaking from more than withdrawal now, sweat pouring off him. "Next form. Begin."

"Maker, though the darkness comes upon me--" _Head strike, arm strike, shield bash across the left flank_ , "I shall embrace the light, I shall weather the storm, I shall endure."

" _Again_." He lost count of how many times she took him through the third form, but he assumed it must have been another ten. Until she called for him to stop, he scarcely could hear Cassandra's voice over the sound of his own rushing blood and heaving breaths, the clatter of sword and shield and armor against the dummy.

Staggering back, Cullen sank to one knee in the grass, his hands clutching the cross-guard of his sword, the metal cool against his forehead. "What you have created, no one can tear asunder."

"Do you think--" He could hear Cassandra aim for sarcastic, but veer into sincere concern. "--you'll be able to get some rest now, Commander Cullen?"

"Yes. Yes, I think so." This time his short laugh was easy, his chest feeling as airy and open as if he might drift away into the sky on a light breeze.

"Do you need help getting back to your quarters?"

"No." Cullen wobbled to his feet, steady enough to walk, though it felt like his whole body had been wrung out by a giant. He looked at the grass and paving stones beneath their feet, then up at Cassandra. "Thank you, Seeker."

"You are most welcome." She paused, mouth working. "The Inquisitor is expected to return by the end of the week. You might-- take a few days, to spend time with her. For her own good and yours."

"I--" Cullen waited for the inevitable weight of time to crash down on them, too little left for all that yet needed to be done -- but it never came. He lifted his shoulders a fraction. "I will consider your suggestion. When I am better rested."

"Very good. Sleep well, Cullen."

"And you, Lady Cassandra."

 

=============  
TRANSFIGURATIONS 1  
=============

Cullen stormed out of the tower, slamming the door shut on his office and the half-written report inside. The sooner he finished the report on the Temple of Dumat, the sooner he could concentrate on other things, but thinking about the whole affair kept fanning the smoldering rage inside him into flames.

What Samson had done was beyond appalling. The needless loss of life, the deception and lies he'd fed his followers -- the grotesque notion of cultivating red lyrium from _living people_. It was more horrific by far than he ever would have expected from the addict who'd eked out a life of petty crime on the streets of Kirkwall after being ejected from the order.

Along the battlements, the air whistled and knifed through the smallest chinks in a person's armor. As he ever had been since they reached Haven, Cullen was grateful for the muffling cloth and fur collar over his armor.

When a walk from his tower to the northern edge of the battlements wasn't enough to settle him, his feet took him down to the courtyard. At first he'd thought to pray, but as he neared the doorway to the shrine he swerved away, out into the open garden. Nothing in his heart would be settled by the flickering candles and the silent stone solemnity of Andraste's visage. What he wanted was to see Samson crushed by the unforgiving hammer of justice.

"Commander." With a start, he realized he'd come to a halt near the well, scowling into the middle distance at nothing and no one in particular. "You seem troubled."

"I _am_  troubled, Mother Giselle." Cullen looked at her. "We are soon to face Corypheus' forces on the field of battle, deep in the Arbor Wilds. It will be a difficult fight, on challenging and unfamiliar terrain, and I must consider the most appropriate strategy and tactics for the forces we will bring to bear. But instead of what is most appropriate, all I can think about is how I might feasibly reach their general, Samson, and chop his head off myself."

"A grave matter, to be sure. Yet as you are hardly a capricious or vindictive man, I am certain reasons exist for your feelings."

"First and foremost, he is a dangerous man, and I do not want the Inquisitor to be the one in harm's way fighting him."

"I fear you have made an unfortunate choice of woman upon whom to bestow your heart, then."

"Thank you, Revered Mother, I am well aware." Cullen glanced away, rubbing at his neck as he felt his ears heat up. "If it were only that, I would be able to set my personal feelings aside as I have before."

"But there is more."

"There is more. Samson has done-- terrible things." Cullen said. "I would not want to burden you with the details, Revered Mother. Like myself, he left the templar order some time ago, and life since his departure did not treat him well, but--"

"You would see him punished for not rising to your fine example, Commander of the Inquisition?"

"No! No, of course not! But he-- the choices he has made have removed him from any and all inclinations I might have had toward mercy. He has made himself a _monster_ , Revered Mother. He has ravaged the bodies and minds of loyal templars, men and women that were once our brothers and sisters. In the service of Corypheus they have been made to commit heinous acts -- and worse, to believe those acts righteous because of the way he twists their loyalty to him."

"And yet?" At her prompt, he blinked. He'd had no intention to continue. And yet--? He turned away, silent for a moment, the question gnawing at him.

"And yet-- had my own circumstances been different..." Not so very hard to imagine, after all. Little need have changed for the events in Kirkwall to have ended with him taking up Meredith's reign of brutal oppression after she fell.

Frighteningly little. "The man at Corypheus' right hand might well have been me."

"And so you are angry because you are afraid. Afraid of what his choices say about the man you once were, and perhaps could yet become."

"I do not think I could still become that man."

"Do you not think he would say the very same, were your positions reversed?"

"--Of course he would." Cullen sagged against the stone of the well. "I can only hope we both would be correct."

He'd spoken a little with Mother Giselle in passing before, on matters of the Inquisition, but never about his own personal faith; this unsettling conversation illustrated one of the many reasons he preferred to keep any doubts and questions he had between himself and the Maker. She had a way of peering under his words to the emotions beneath and drawing them out of him.

"Must it have been either him or me? Both of us tied to these fates, one way or the other? The Chant tells us that all things in this world are finite. What one man gains--"

"Another has lost. That is true." She nodded.

"I left the order and achieved no small measure of success, and even some degree of peace. He left the order, but never managed to escape its long shadow." Cullen looked at Mother Giselle. "Did I--?"

"Go on."

"It's-- I know it's a foolish thought."

"If it is foolish, then speak it and I will tell you so." From anyone else he would have expected a drier tone, but Mother Giselle sounded utterly serious. "You will be relieved to hear it, will you not?"

"Did I take the chance of success from him? Did I doom him to be swallowed up by that darkness?"

"No. No more than he took the chance of failure from you and forced you toward the light of dawn."

"I've come close to failure many times." His voice came out low, his hand curling around the pommel of his sword.

"Likewise, I am sure there have been as many times where this Samson has approached the Maker's light -- and then turned away once more, just as you have turned from failure time and time again to move forward." Mother Giselle laid a hand on his arm. "Every day you make choice after choice after choice, and these choices are the stones that form the road on which you travel. So, too, is his road formed by the choices he makes. A single stone does not a road make."

"I-- Yes. I understand." Cullen placed his hand over hers and bowed his head.

"Remember what else the Chant tells us: those who bear false witness and work to deceive others, know this: there is but one truth. All things are known to our Maker, and _he_  shall judge their lies." Mother Giselle gestured at him and he straightened in an instant, his body still remembering the order's habits of obedience to the Chantry. "You may no longer be a templar, Commander, but yours is still the sword that protects, not the one that is raised against the people in intimidation and brutality."

"Of course, you are correct. Thank you, Revered Mother. I should return to my preparations."

"You are most welcome, Commander. May Andraste watch over you."

 

=======  
TRIALS 1:14  
=======

"Though all before me is shadow, yet shall the Maker be my guide. I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond. For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light, and nothing that He has wrought shall be lost."

"A prayer for you?"


End file.
